A Lesson in Murder
by Beboppin' Betty
Summary: One dead body, one filthy rich family, one small town, and one disillusioned detective and his slightly perverse partner. A Buffyverse whodunit. AU
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: _I don't own any characters you recognize from BtVS or Angel.

The place was already swarming with uniforms, CSU and reporters when I pulled into the drive of the Giles place. I ignored the vultures shoving microphones and questions at me as I ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and approached the nearest uniformed cop. I flashed my badge. "Detective Gunn. Where is it?"

"Back of the property." He pointed in the direction of the scene and I nodded and started the long trek across pristine green lawns that went on for what seemed like miles in every direction, broken up by trees here, a pond and a horse barn there. And there was the house, of course. Mansion wasn't even big enough to describe it. The place was palatial—about the exact opposite of the place I grew up in L.A.

But, as I reminded myself almost daily, this sure as hell wasn't L.A. It was Sunnydale, home to some of the weirdest shit I'd ever seen on the job and to the ridiculously wealthy Giles family. As I was mentally cursing the rich, my phone rang.

"Gunn."

"Where are you?" It was my partner, Wright, impatient as usual.

"I'm about two minutes out."

"From the property?" She demanded. I snorted and cast a glance around at the sheer expanse of land that made up the Giles property. "Nah, from you. It's like running a damn marathon just to get to the tool shed."

"Jealous?" She asked in that cool, taunting way of hers. I hung up the phone without a reply. I could see the small crowd of my colleagues milling around a very old looking stone shed. My partner's blonde head stood out amongst them as she stood just outside the structure talking with one of the Forensics guys. It wasn't until I sidled up next to her that I realized what I was looking at wasn't a shed. "A _crypt_?"

"Isn't the irony delicious?"

The grin on my partner's face was just a little creepy so I looked away from her and into the dark tomb. "So what have we got?"

What we had was a dead body with a cracked skull and a puddle of blood. He was face down and wearing a suit that most likely cost more than I made in three months.

"William Donovan," Wright said, consulting her notepad. "Thirty-eight." The medical examiners finished up their photos and flipped the body over. I threw the name around in my mind. William Donovan was often in the papers, both in the business section and society pages. Lifeless blue eyes stared up at me once they'd flipped him and I frowned. No matter how beautiful a person was alive, death was always ugly.

"Cause of death?" I figured it was probably blunt force trauma, and the M.E. confirmed it as he snapped more pictures. "Time of death approximately ten-thirty last night," he added.

"Who discovered him?" There was no one at the scene that wasn't a cop and no one at the scene that I needed to talk to. Wright slipped on her sunglasses and glanced at her notebook again. "Liam D'Angelo. He's up at the house with the rest of them." She didn't need to clarify who _them _was. I was willing to bet that the entire Giles clan and a full team of crack lawyers would be waiting anxiously to stonewall us.

Mix high profile family, small town and murder together and what have you got?

"It's gonna be a long day." I started back the way I came, after a minute noticing I was sans-partner. "Wright, move it!" I didn't have the time or inclination to dick around. This case would have made a lot of other detectives salivate, but I had little patience for the wealthy and privileged and could already feel the headache starting.

Still no partner. I stopped and turned to see her on her cell phone and spitting mad. It didn't faze me; she often got that look on her face when speaking to the Boss. "Darla!" I yelled. "I ain't got all day here!"

Her response was to turn her back on me and continue her argument. I sent a glare her way but couldn't stop the smirk. With a shake of my head I trudged on alone into the snake pit.

* * *

I was half right. There weren't any lawyers I could see -- probably waiting in the next room, but there was what looked like much of the Giles clan spread about the cavernous living room. Every one of them looked anxious and nervous. I introduced myself and tried to gauge what the mood of the room was as I started my preliminary questioning.

"I found him this morning at around nine thirty," Liam D'Angelo said calmly. He was tall and dark and wasn't showing anything to suggest he was upset by the death. He apparently knew what I was going to ask next because he said, "I was walking the property with the dogs and they went straight to the crypt. I followed and found him."

I made a note. "Do you all live here?"

"No," said the red-head who was on the couch with her arm around the shoulders of a small blonde who'd obviously been crying. "Neither Angel," she nodded towards Mr. D'Angleo. "Or I live here."

I nearly snorted aloud but covered it with a cough. _Angel_? That was one of the stupidest nicknames I'd ever heard on a man, but the rich always did have odd names like Chip or Pemberton. "And you are?"

"Willow." She didn't bother with a last name and I didn't ask. The woman was wearing what I called neo-hippie and looked suitably upset by the death. I understood that the daughter might come home to support her family in the crisis, but I didn't get why D'Angelo was there and said as much.

"We had a party last night," said another man; one with an eye patch and a defensive stance. "Angel, Willow and several others stayed overnight."

"Including Mr. Donovan?"

"Yes. My father's putting together a guest list right now." He paused very briefly. "Have you got any questions for me? I have to get to work."

"Xander!" The blonde on the couch admonished furiously. "Spike's _dead_!"

"Yeah, Buffy, I know."

Well, now, wasn't that interesting? "One," I said. "Where were you between ten and eleven p.m. last night?" Surprisingly he didn't look offended at the question, unlike most people when they realized they were part of a murder investigation.

"With my daughter. She'd had a nightmare and I stayed with her until she fell asleep, around twenty after eleven. Then I came back to the party. Ask the Delaneys for corroboration; they were with me when Sylvia came downstairs." He pulled out his wallet and handed me a business card. "You can reach me at these numbers when you've got more questions."

I took the card, frankly surprised at the man's attitude. "Expect my call." Xander Giles would definitely be looked into. "Thanks for your cooperation." He nodded and left the room without a backward glance for anyone else. I pocketed the card and turned back to the family.

"So, Spike?"

The blonde, Buffy, stood and poured herself a drink. "His nickname." She took a healthy swallow of whatever was in her glass. "This is a nightmare! Who would want to kill Spike?"

That was what I intended to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

"This ain't gonna be an easy one," I sighed into my coffee. Wright and I were comparing notes at a favourite cop hangout, the Greasy Spoon diner, across from the precinct. She bit into her BLT with a weird sort of delicate gusto and grinned. "I love a juicy murder."

"You're kinda freaky, you know that, right?"

She shrugged. "You are what you are. So, any of the Giles' on your short list?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if they all planned it and paid the gardener to do the dirty work."

She raised a brow and gestured me to continue. "Let me put it this way," I said. "I kept waiting for the cheesy soap opera suspense music to kick in when I interviewed them. This Donovan guy, whose nickname is Spike by the way, was into everybody's business, including the family one."

"No shit," she said dryly. To live in Sunnydale and not know that William Donovan was the President and right-hand man at Rupert Giles' conglomerate was to live under a very large rock with your fingers in your ears. Personally I didn't think there was anything special about that particular family, but then, I wasn't from Sunnydale. "Anyway, everyone I talked to seemed to have some reason to go on the list. There's the ex-wife, Buffy-"

Wright snickered. "_Buffy_?"

"You wouldn't believe the list of names I've got," I said, still not over the more ludicrous monikers. "There's the ex's sister, Willow-"

"She's one of the big-shots at the company," Wright said consideringly. "Thinking a power/jealousy angle?" There was a reason I liked my partner -- it was exactly what I'd been thinking. "Yeah. Then there's their brother, Xander." I explained to her what he'd said and how he'd acted and she agreed that he was worth looking into. Wright finished her sandwich and flagged the waitress down for coffee. "What about Giles senior?"

"No reason I could find to put him on the list from the brief conversation we had, but there's something off about him. Something about the bumbling old British man act that I just don't buy." Rupert Giles had had a sharp, calculating gleam of intelligence in his eyes that didn't match the quaint older gentleman façade, and I intended to keep an eye on the old man during the investigation.

"I can't figure out the D'Angelo guy. His wife is Giles' niece but he seemed much more comfortable in that house than an in-law should. He discovered the body and I got the feeling there was some sort of history between him and the victim, but nobody said more than they had to. In fact, D'Angelo was the mouthpiece of the group for the most part."

Wright looked intrigued as she often did on any murder case we got thrown our way. "What's his story?"

"Says his wife had some strange pregnancy craving and he was at some all-night convenience store trying to find it." It was the only alibi that was solid and could be easily verified, so the guy wasn't high up on my list. But it was still too early to make assumptions. "There were two hundred people at that party," I said, handing Wright the list. Her mouth tightened and some of the interest in her eyes faded, and I smirked. Having to interview that many people was any cop's nightmare. It usually proved a fruitless waste of valuable time.

"Fuck," she swore. I couldn't have agreed more but reminded her that because it was such a high profile case, the Mayor (via the Chief) had the entire department at our disposal so we could pawn off much of the list, saving only the family for ourselves.

"You never said why the ex-wife was on your short list," Wright said out of the blue as we headed back to the car.

"Yes I did. She's the _ex-wife_."

"She's a suspect just because she's divorced from the victim? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." It made sense to me – in my experience, nine out of ten divorced women wished their ex-husbands dead, mine included.

"Still worth looking into." I fully intended to learn more about the Giles family than they knew existed on record. "Who's first on the list?"

"A guy named…."

* * *

"Wesley Wyndham-Price?"

The man at the door of the modest house was a clean cut with cool blue eyes, probably in his late thirties and looked less than pleased to see us standing on his porch. "Yes?" He said warily, his accent crisp and upper-crust. I flashed my badge. "Detectives Gunn and Wright. Do you have a few minutes?"

"I'm sorry, Detectives, we're just on our way out."

I exchanged a look with Darla. "Sir, this will only take a minute."

Wyndham-Price looked ready to protest once more, but a voice spoke up behind him. "Wesley, who is it?" A willowy woman with a slight southern twang in her voice came to the door. Her eyes were puffy and nose red. She'd obviously been crying. The Brit's irritation with us fought with apparent concern for his wife. "The detectives handling Spike's case, Darling," he said, a great deal softer with her then he'd been with us.

"We just have a few questions, Ma'am."

There was a brief pause, then, "Please come in."

I ignored Wyndham-Price as I passed him, sort of an unnerving tactic of mine, and Wright flashed him a cool smile – an unnerving tactic of hers. My partner had this way with men that I'd never understood. She was hot, true, but she was damn scary if you knew her.

"Can I get you something?" The wife offered. "Coffee?" I accepted. It looked like the woman needed to do something to keep her mind busy. She hurried off to the kitchen while her husband glowered at us from the doorway. Wright subtly followed the wife to 'lend a hand' with the coffee and I started in on Wyndham-Price. "Are you and Rupert Giles related?" I asked causally, perusing the room. So far there were three British men involved in this case, one of them being the victim. It was probable that they were connected through family.

"He's my half-brother," Wyndham-Price all but snapped. "How is that relevant?"

"Oh, I was just curious. So you were at the party last night at your brother's house? Where were you between ten and eleven p.m.?"

"With my wife."

"I'm gonna need a little more information than that," I say dryly. This guy was being especially obtuse for no reason I could understand. Unless he was hiding something…

To my surprise, the prickly Brit blushed. "We, ah, we were making use of one of the guest rooms." I got the drift and didn't bother keeping my amusement to myself. "For the whole hour?"

"Yes."

"Uh huh," I made a show of jotting the info down in my trusty notepad. "And before you and your wife went upstairs, did you notice anything unusual?"

"Not particularly," he said after a moment of thought. "When we went up, about quarter to ten, the party was really just getting started. If I remember, Spike was…" Wyndham-Price stopped and frowned. "Actually, Spike was arguing with Buffy."

That was the best piece of news I'd heard all day. Suddenly much more interested, I encouraged him to continue.

"That in itself wasn't unusual; they often argued, even while married. But I remember noticing that Buffy seemed to be drunk. She's not a huge drinker," he explained. "But lately she's been drinking quite often." My mind flashed back to that morning and my meeting with the family. She'd been drinking then, too. I asked him a few more questions before collecting Wright.

In the car we compared notes. "The woman wouldn't shut up," Wright said, pleased. "I offered my condolences and she burst into tears and told me the whole damn story – how Spike was such a good friend to her, how he'd been crushed when Buffy left him, how he and Angel never got along because of this Buffy chick." I waited, knowing that look on her face. "_And,_" She said smugly. "How jealous her husband always was of Spike because of his position in the company and Giles senior's life."

"No shit?" This investigation was starting to look like an episode of _Dallas_. "I want to talk to Buffy Giles." I pointed the car in the direction of the Giles property. "Maybe she can tell us who shot J.R."


	3. Chapter 3

A housekeeper showed us into the Giles place and led us to a fairly large home gym where Buffy Giles was doing a number on a punching bag. "Thanks," I said to the maid with a smile. Two of my aunts had cleaned houses for the better part of their lives so I always felt compelled to be extra nice to others in the same position. At the sound of my voice Buffy glanced over but didn't address us until she'd hit the bag a couple more times and kicked it almost off the chain. "Wouldn't want to bump into you in a dark alley," I commented, both serious and hoping to break the ice and open her up a bit.

The woman towelled her face and took a swig of water. "Keeps my mind clear. Have you found anything out?"

"Well, we found out that you and Mr. Donovan were arguing the night he was killed," Wright said impassively. Ms. Giles' expression went from shock to anger to defeat in record time. "Luke," she said abruptly, her gaze directed behind Wright and me. "Honey, why don't you go and find Grandpa?"

I then noticed that we weren't alone in the room. Sitting by the wall was a young boy, about seven or eight, with blonde hair that hung in his eyes, blue eyes that I recognized as William Donovan's and a mouth that was pulled into the deep frown that could only be associated with bottled grief.

The kid got to his feet and sidled up to his mother. "I want to stay here."

"We'll only be a minute, I promise. Then maybe we can go for a ride?"

The boy looked to be warring with himself for a moment before sighing. "Okay." When he was gone Buffy Giles turned to us sadly. "He hasn't left my side yet today. He was so close with his father."

Wright, the far less sympathetic of the two of us, took the lead. "We've heard that maybe you weren't as close with your ex-husband. You were seen arguing with him less than an hour before he was killed."

"Yeah, well, Spike and I fought about as often as the sun rises, ask anyone we know. That argument wasn't anything special."

I remained silent while Wright threw in her rebuttal. "Well it must have been special enough for someone who _does _know you to mention it to us."

"Oh yeah? Who was it?"

"Your uncle."

Buffy snorted. "Big surprise. Wesley doesn't know his ass from his elbow, and he never liked Spike. Or me, for that matter," she added as an afterthought. Wright and I pretended to ignore the woman's response. "What did you fight about?" I pressed. She either realized she'd have to tell us eventually or decided not to bother putting up a fuss because she sighed. "He was on me because I'd had a few too many drinks and he wanted to cut me off. I disagreed."

It fit with what Wesley Wyndham-Price had told us about her being drunk and with her earlier story about being at the bar around the time Donovan had been killed. Of course, it also seemed a little too neat, and after the woman's fight with the punching bag she'd moved up a few slots on the list. But until we heard back from forensics there was no basis for deeper questioning.

"One last thing, Ms. Giles." I said. "Can you think of any reason someone would want your ex-husband dead?"

"Not really," she said almost bitterly. "But I can think of at least one person who'd be glad to tell you otherwise."

"Who?"

"My brother. He could never kill anyone," she rushed to assure us. "But he's _never_ liked Spike."

Wright and I exchanged a look and wondered if Buffy Giles knew just how many people ended up doing what their families thought they never could. I'd be withholding judgement until I talked to Xander Giles face to face.

* * *

Day two of the investigation started out at the station. Some serious headway had been made on our list of partygoers and the backgrounds I'd requested on the Giles family after the group interview the previous morning were sitting on my desk.

Wright eyed the files. "That was fast."

"Don't forget whose case this is," I reminded her and handed her half before starting on my own pile in search of one in particular. According to the file, Xander Giles had no record, owned his own construction company, had three kids and a wife who'd died two years previously. There were a few newspaper articles featuring the man, but absolutely nothing on paper to suggest he was capable of murder.

I picked up my next file and Wright almost grinned over hers. "Listen to this. Buffy Giles is a third-degree black belt – she was pro for awhile – and has an assault charge from when she was eighteen. Threw some girl out a window. Girl survived but was in a coma for eight months."

"And all she got was assault?" I whistled in surprise. "What do you wanna bet Daddy built a hospital or something to get her down to that?"

"I think that's about the same time the new courthouse went up," Wright replied thoughtfully. "Anyway, I'm liking this chick more and more."

I knew she didn't mean 'like' in the normal sense of the word. She liked Buffy Giles more as a suspect. I agreed, but knew that if a person had a past it didn't necessarily mean they were guilty now. "We need to find out more about Buffy Giles and Donovan." Wright grabbed her jacket. "You wanna talk to the brother?"

"I want to talk to the brother."

* * *

A quick phone call had us going to the outskirts of town to the new housing development Xander Giles' company was building. Wright drew more than a few catcalls and whistles as we picked our way through the site to find the man.

"Mr. Giles," I greeted him cordially when we finally found him in one of the new houses. The man dismissed the worker he was talking to. "Detectives," He acknowledged with a nod. "It's Harris, by the way."

Wright paused in wiping sawdust from her skirt to glance up at our possible suspect. "Excuse me?"

"I use my mother's maiden name. I assume you have some questions for me?" At our affirmative, Mr. _Harris _suggested we use the trailer for privacy. "So," He said once we were settled. "Which one of them told you I hated Spike?"

I paused. "Your sister, Buffy." To my surprise, Harris laughed a little. "Why did I even ask? Yes, I hated Spike, but I didn't kill him."

"Why did you hate him?"

Xander sneered. "The man was a parasite. A vampire. He wormed his way into our family and sucked the soul out of it. Before Spike came along we were happier, we got along better. I'm not heartless enough to say I'm glad he's dead, but I'm not sorry about it."

"Those are some pretty strong feelings."

"Doesn't mean I killed him."

"No it doesn't."

Wright, impatient, broke in. "Can you think of anyone who wanted Mr. Donovan dead? Enough to kill him?"

"Look, I usually tried to pretend Spike didn't exist, but if I had to take a guess I'd say that Wesley probably had the biggest grudge against him. And Angel, of course."

"Mr. D'Angelo and Mr. Donovan didn't get along?"

Harris snorted. "That's like saying the U.S. and Iraq just had a little quarrel. As long as I've known them they've been at each other's throats. Mostly it's over Buffy. Angel and Buffy dated off and on for years, then she took up with Spike, and you know the rest."

Actually we only knew the bare minimum. Spike and Buffy married, had one son, divorced. That was about everything we had on the pair. The rivalry between Spike and Angel, however, was far more interesting than some sordid love triangle. We asked him a few more questions and thanked him for his time. On the way back to the car, Wright phoned into the station for D'Angelo's address. The plot had thickened.


	4. Chapter 4

Cordelia Chase D'Angelo was not someone you could predict. She was beautiful, five months pregnant and in turns sweet and accommodating or sharp and condescending. She and her husband lived in an upper-middle class neighbourhood that housed the best kind of rich: not swimming in cash but wealthy enough and modest enough not to flaunt it like the Giles'.

"I know that Angel's alibi checked out; why do you want to talk to him?" The wife asked defensively as she let us into the house.

"We understand that your husband and Mr. Donovan didn't get along."

The look Cordelia D'Angelo gave at the revelation was designed to wither a man in the most intimate of places and I was not immune. I didn't shift uncomfortably in my seat despite my automatic urge to, and instead fixed her with my best impatient cop look. It had made more than one suspect cough up a confession but the D'Angelo chick didn't so much as blink. With a glance to Wright I tossed the ball to her -- Darla was on this woman's wavelength and was sure to leave her a lot more humble.

"So you agree that your husband and the victim were not friendly?"

D'Angelo sighed impatiently but co-operated. "No, they were not friendly. Never have been, even before little miss cry-Buffy got their balls in a vice."

I coughed to cover the laugh, and even Wright looked amused, but more than that I was surprised that the lady wasn't trying to glamorize her husband's rivalry with a murder victim. "They have a history?"

"They were step-brothers for awhile. Love-hate relationship with enough competition to choke a horse." She shifted and thought momentarily. "Look, Angel and Spike had just about the most twisted relationship you could think of, but I'd shop at Sears before believing that one could kill the other. Send into exile and never speak to again, absolutely, but murder just wasn't in their heads for each other."

If I had a buck for every person who said that, I'd be heading into early retirement. It was the same old routine: suspect's family gets questioned, they claim he was incapable of murder, family is blindsided when the guy gets convicted. Sad really, and damn irritating. "How long have you known your husband, Mrs. D'Angelo?" I could tell that she knew exactly what I was getting at and didn't appreciate it.

"Fifteen years." She looked haughty and her back was up, so I eased off. "When are you expecting Angel home?"

Obviously irritated beyond her limits, Cordelia glanced at her tastefully expensive watch. "Fifteen minutes or so. Feel free to wait in your car." And with that she stood and left the room. Wright and I exchanged a look of sheer surprise. She shook her head with a bit of a smirk and started for the door. "Pregnancy doesn't agree with everyone."

"Now, see, you're just stereotyping there. She could just be that way."

Thirty-five minutes later Angel pulled up in a vintage black convertible. Wright, who did not appreciate waiting and had been on the verge of ordering takeout, all but jumped out of the car. Of course, she had a way about her that made her eagerness impossible to spot. I took my time hiking back up the drive -- we'd waited long enough, now it was his turn.

He was not surprised to see us and I figured his wife probably tipped him off. "Detectives," he greeted with a nod. Wright jumped in with both feet and didn't spend much time on pleasantries before getting to the point. "We'd like to talk to you about your rivalry with William Donovan."

"I'm sure you've heard it all by now."

This guy was a tough nut to crack, I could tell just by the way he spoke now and had over the past few days. "We've heard stories."

Angel leaned against his car and crossed his arms. "Spike and I had a difficult relationship, I guess you could say. He enjoyed making my life as irritating as possible and I did my best to ignore him."

Wright tilted her head in an innocent pose. "What about your relationships with Buffy Giles?" At that Angel D'Angleo's mouth tightened. "She and I were off and on for a few years but we'd really called it quits by the time Spike moved in on her. Look," he said before either of us could. "It's a bit of a sore spot, but I got over it a long time ago. And Spike pissed a lot of people off in his life."

He wasn't going to say much more -- nothing really useful anyway -- and he had an airtight alibi with video to back it up from a security tape in the convenience store so Darla and I wrapped up the questioning. "I'm guessing you know Spike better than most people. Who do you think he'd have pissed off enough to murder him?"

It surprised me to see the momentary flash of sadness in the man's eyes before he shrugged. "Just about everyone. When Spike did something, he did it big."

* * *

We were munching on meatball subs when the call came in that our forensics were back. When we made it back to the lab, we were both anxious to hear what they'd dug up. Wright paused at the doors and peered in the small window with distaste. "It's Jonathan." I grinned and all but reveled in her discomfort at the thought of the nerdy little lab tech who harbored a major crush on her. I found it endlessly funny that she, a woman who could eat a man alive, didn't know how to handle a harmless crush. "You know what? I'm gonna make a few calls out here while you do that." I rolled my eyes and pushed open the swinging doors. Jonathan glanced up hopefully and his face immediately fell. "Hey, Gunn. Where is the delectable Detective Wright?"

"Got tied up at the office. What've you got?"

Jonathan sighed but pulled out his reports. "DNA, and lots of it."

"What? Seriously?"

"That crypt was a hotbed of hair, blood and bodily fluids."

"Bod- you mean somebody actually got it on in a _crypt_?" I couldn't hide my disgust at the thought. People are just damn freaky. Jonathan, who was apparently enjoying my reaction, grinned. "Lots of somebodies, actually. Either they had an orgy in there or it's a popular place for amorous couples. I've got three different males and several females."

I hoped to god it was just a popular place.

"One was a match to the victim -- semen, not blood -- and another was to Buffy Giles." The chick's DNA would be in the system from her arrest years before. "Any luck on the others?"

"Well, yes and no." The little twerp just loved to make us cops squirm with impatience while he played out his game. "The two other male specimens are related to Buffy. One is her father and the second, which was a hair sample, shared a couple of markers with her, but his was closer to the father's DNA."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it's likely the second male is a sibling or close relation to Rupert Giles."

"Hot damn," I muttered. "Whatever happened to the backseat of a car?"

Jonathan consulted a file folder before handing it over. "I found wood fragments in the head wound; pine, untreated. The size and depth of the wound indicates that it was probably no bigger than two feet by six or seven inches and struck him at a downward angle. Now, I'm no detective, but I'd guess it was a hunk of firewood." He grinned somewhat gleefully. "Sounds like you've got yourself a good old-fashioned whodunit on your hands. Illicit affairs and the whole bit. So, do you think it was Colonel Mustard or Mrs. Peacock?"

"Well, we got the firewood in the backyard crypt part, and the DNA part, so now I'm going to talk to Colonel Mustard and see what he has to say." On my way out the door Jonathan called after me: "Hey! Keep me updated on this one, would you? I've got my bets in already." I ignored him and met Wright in the hall, who had somehow managed to find herself a vending machine and was devouring a bag of chips. I helped myself and filled her in on the latest developments.

"Crypt sex?" She waggled her brows. "Kinky."

"You're nasty."

"Noo, I'm adventurous. Maybe that was your problem with Gwen, lack of adventure."

The mention of my ex-wife brought on the uneasy indigestion that had long been associated with her. "Our problem was too much adventure." The illegal kind of adventure Gwen had indulged in her entire life and had refused to give up even after she married a cop. My one concession to her was not turning her in (in exchange for a nice little divorce settlement). "Annie's a lot more my speed. Now let's go see Giles senior."


End file.
